It’s a grey Sunday here in Toronto, and, while it’s not too cold (for January), it’s one of those lazy days where I haven’t left the house. I knew I’d get some reading in today but wasn’t sure I felt up to baking. Then I realized it was a good time to bake something with yeast, since I could read while I waited for the dough to rise.

The bake

I’ve been thinking about baking cinnamon rolls for a while, and today was my first attempt. I used the Easy Cinnamon Rolls (from scratch) recipe from Sally’s Baking Addiction. These were, in fact, quite easy to make. But next time I think I need to make a better roll (like, make it tighter or something?). Anyway, I enjoyed one of these fresh from the oven with a bit of icing drizzled on top. I didn’t frost all of them, as I’m planning on freezing some of them. My guess is that, even if I warm up the others, they won’t be quite as good later on. But they’re still homemade cinnamon rolls, and that’s something to be excited about.

The book

I’m reading The Discomfort of Evening, written by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld and translated from the Dutch by Michele Hutchinson. The story follows Jas, a young girl, who lives on a farm in the Netherlands with her family. Her older brother, Matthies, dies tragically at the very beginning of the book, and Jas and her remaining siblings are left to contemplate death and watch their parents grieve. The novel is well written (it did win the 2020 International Booker Prize, after all), and I am interested in the characters and how they cope with Matthies’ death, but I am finding it a little heavy and somewhat disturbing for my current mood. Luckily, the cinnamon rolls are providing a bit of comfort to go with this discomfort.